Age Is Only A Number
by rhymenocerous
Summary: DL Post-Ep for 7X18 Identity Crisis. "God, I can't believe I'm at the age where kids think I'm old," Danny lamented as he held the door to the office open for Jo, following her inside and dropping dejectedly down into his chair. "When did that happen?"


**A/N: Gah! I am so late with this Post-Ep. Sorry, sorry, sorry! I've been in the land of no internet and no electricity for the past four days and only just re-entered civilization on Wednesday afternoon. I've been thinking about this episode since it aired and I have to admit that this is a very different ****story than I originally planned on writing… but sometimes the muse just wants what she wants and I hope you guys like it nonetheless. *crosses fingers***

**Anyways, I need to say a gigantic THANK YOU to all those who reviewed my fic for the last episode… you guys seriously blew me away with the positive feedback. So cheers to you all!**

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><p>He was wandering down the hall with his nose buried in a file. So engrossed was he that he didn't seen the pair emerging from the conference room until he'd all but crashed into them.<p>

"Whoa… sorry Jo," Danny apologized absently as he ensured that he hadn't lost any of the contents of his file during the collision. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"No harm done, Danny," Jo said as she brushed herself off, giving Danny that slow disarming smile of hers. "I was coming to find you anyway. I think you're about the only person in the lab that hasn't met Russ yet, and I wanted to introduce you two." She gestured to the man at her side. "Russ Josephson, Danny Messer. Danny Messer, Russ Josephson."

Danny hadn't needed Jo's introduction to figure out that the man at her side was her ex-husband. Danny had heard enough of the female population of the lab – his own wife included – gushing about him after his first visit a few months back that it left Danny in no doubt as to his identity. He cringed inwardly as he remembered Lindsay in particular going on and on about him later that night as they lay in bed. She'd commented on how he was so smart and charming, and such a gentleman; and how Jo was insane to keep him at arm's length when he was obviously still crazy about her.

As if that wasn't enough, she then started in on his looks. She couldn't believe he looked so good for his age. Not that he was old – he had maybe 10 or 15 years on them at the very most. He was so tall and Lindsay decided he must obviously work out and look after himself really well if the way he filled out his suit was anything to go by. And that accent? Like blackstrap molasses in January, Lindsay had surmised with a dreamy sigh.

"Messer, huh?" Russ asked, interrupting Danny's thoughts and dragging him back to the present. He had a wide, friendly smile and the same slow, lazy drawl as Jo when he spoke. He grinned at Danny and they shook hands. "So that must mean that you belong to that cute little brunette I seem to run into every time I show up here." He clapped Danny on the shoulder in a gesture of masculine camaraderie. "You're a lucky guy. She seems like a real firecracker; smart as a whip, too."

Danny smiled and nodded his agreement, his body responding automatically to Russ's comment while his mind was still firmly focused a few sentences back. _Cute little brunette? Had that guy just referred to his wife as _that_ cute little brunette?_

With a shake of his head, Danny brought his thoughts back to the present, realizing that Russ and Jo were attempting to fill him in on the progress they'd made in the case during the meeting they'd just had with Mac, Hawkes and Lindsay.

"… and then Mac pointed out that we should have been looking for reports of a little old man as the con artist," Jo summed up for Danny's benefit. "So Lindsay and Flack have gone down to the precinct to go through case files and interview victims. Hopefully we'll get something useful."

"Well, good luck to them," Russ said. He glanced at his watch and gave Jo a small smile. "Look, I've gotta run. But maybe I'll stop by and check in on you and Ellie tomorrow morning? You're still thinking about taking her to Connecticut, right?"

Jo nodded solemnly. "If she still wants to go," she said somewhat hesitantly. "And if she's still talking to me."

Russ gave her a sympathetic smile and kissed her temple before turning to Danny. "It was nice to meet you, Danny," he said. "I've heard a lot of great things about you – mostly from your little lady." He shot Danny a wink. "She's really something else; actually reminds me of this one here -" he gestured to Jo, "- before she turfed me out of the house, of course."

"Oh will you stop it?" Jo moaned. "Didn't you have somewhere you had to be?"

"Alright, alright. I'm going," Russ chuckled, raising his hands in surrender at Jo's eyebrow, cocked in irritation. "Just don't wanna see a guy make the same mistake I made and let the best thing that ever happened to him get away." With that he affectionately ruffled Jo's hair and waved to Danny before sauntering away down the hall.

Danny watched his coworker smooth down her tresses, heaving an amiably irritable huff as she did so. "You know… for exes, you two get a long pretty well," he observed. "What's your secret?"

Jo gave him a rueful smile. "I have the patience of a saint," she replied. She stole a quick glance over her shoulder at Russ's retreating form. "That, and the fact that Russ has too much charisma for his own damn good. And he knows I'm a sucker for the ol' Southern charm."

"Yeah, you and half the lab," Danny muttered. He blushed when he realized he'd spoken out loud and that Jo was staring at him askance. "Sorry. I… that was out of line. I didn't mean…" He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's just that last time he was here… well, he's all I heard about for weeks afterward."

"Well, people in this lab love to gossip and Russ definitely has a way with the…" Jo trailed off as realization dawned on her. "Oh. You're not just talking about here at the lab, are you?"

Danny cleared his throat and scratched at a non-existent itch on his cheek. He needed to tread carefully here. Lindsay had formed a strong friendship with the older woman in a relatively short time; he certainly didn't want to be the cause of any friction between the two of them. Plus, he knew that Lindsay would be beyond furious with him if he revealed what she had said to him about Russ. Not that she'd sworn him to secrecy or anything like that. But it was an unspoken rule that things said between them stayed between them and he'd come perilously close to violating that rule.

"How's Ellie doing?" he asked by way of changing the subject. Jo shot him a knowing smile, but graciously accepted his unspoken request to talk about something else.

"She's good. Well… as good as can be expected," she acquiesced as the two of them began to walk together toward their shared office. She smiled at Danny. "You were really good with her yesterday on the train. You've got a real way with kids, you know? You actually talked to her. You didn't talk down to her, which I really appreciate. I find that most adults can't tell the difference."

Danny chuckled in response. "Well she's a good kid," he said. "It's a horrible thing that she had to see, but she was great. All the details she remembered... I don't think I could have done nearly as well when I was her age."

"She'll be pleased to hear that coming from you," Jo informed him, giving his ribs a gentle dig with her elbow. "I think she's a little sweet on you, to be honest. She said you were pretty hot for an old guy."

Jo let out a long belly laugh as Danny sputtered and gaped at her. "Old? _Old_? What…?"

"Relax, Danny," Jo chuckled, patting his arm. "She's twelve. People who are in their late teens seem old to her. I'm practically ancient – a dinosaur, in fact."

"God, I can't believe I'm at the age where kids think I'm old," Danny lamented as he held the door to the office open for Jo, following her inside and dropping dejectedly down into his chair. "When did that happen?"

Jo chuckled and grabbed her handbag from the messy pile on her desk. "Sometime between the first grey hair and the first wrinkle," she informed him as she shouldered her bag and made for the door. "But the great thing is that the important people in your life – the people that really matter – don't give a damn how old you are or what you look like. That's what's so great about unconditional love."

She gave him a parting wink before pushing through the door and heading for the elevator, leaving Danny to mull over what she'd said.

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><p>Lindsay was carefully balancing a stack of case files in her arms. She and Flack had questioned several victims of Sabrina Willis' elaborate cons and she was about ready to head home with Danny to spend some quality time with their little family. She awkwardly shoved open the door to the office, letting out an irritated huff when she noticed her husband sitting at his desk. He hadn't made a single move to get up and help her as she squeezed her way into the room and she felt no small amount of satisfaction at the yelp of surprise he let out when she slammed her heavy load down onto her desk with a loud thud.<p>

"Jesus, Linds. You scared the crap out of me!" Danny clutched at his chest trying to quell the rapid beating of his heart at the sudden and unexpected interruption.

"Sorry," Lindsay said, her tone indicating that she was anything but. "I wouldn't have had to scare you if you'd been gentleman enough to open the door for me."

"If I'd…" She saw his eyes flick to the tower of files and then back to her face. "Sorry. I was just… I didn't hear you come in," he said, giving her a small, apologetic smile.

"Alright. I'll bite. What is so interesting that you didn't hear me barging through the door?" she asked, rounding the desks to see what he had been looking at. He saw her coming and scrambled to grab his mouse and minimize the window at the forefront of his screen.

Lindsay stopped in her tracks and raised her eyebrows at his notably guilty reaction. She regarded him speculatively as she crossed her arms over her chest and perched on the corner of her desk.

"Looking at porn again, Dan?" she teased with a poker face. "You know Mac hates it when you do that at work."

"Shut up. I was not," Danny retorted, leaning back in his chair. Lindsay continued to stare expectantly at him, patiently waiting for an explanation for his behaviour. Letting out a resigned sigh, he maximized the window on his monitor and gestured to the screen, inviting her to have a look.

Curious, Lindsay rounded her desk and stood behind her husband, peering down at the monitor. Her eyes went wide and a peal of laughter escaped from her lips before could stop herself. She clapped her hands over her mouth in an attempt to stifle further giggles from escaping and looked to Danny for an explanation.

"Honey, is that supposed to be you?" she asked after she'd managed to collect herself somewhat. Frowning at her amused reaction, Danny nodded his head. She glanced again at the image he had been manipulating with the age progression software. The Danny staring back at her from the monitor was significantly older and greyer, his hair much thinner and wrinkles lined the skin around his eyes and mouth. "But… why? Why would you do that to yourself?" she asked. "Is it… is it because of yesterday? With Adam? Because, I told you already that it was fine, babe. I can take a joke."

"No. It's not that." Danny shifted in his chair, fidgeting with the pencils he kept in a cup on his desk and making a concerted effort not to look at her. "It's… uh, I met Russ Josephson today."

"Um… okay." Whatever Lindsay had been expecting him to say… well, it hadn't been that. She was slightly puzzled as to how Danny meeting Russ would prompt him to begin massacring his picture in this way. "So?"

"So I… You know what? Never mind. It's stupid," he said, once again minimizing the window and starting to push his chair back from his desk. "You ready to go home?"

"Honey?" Lindsay reached out and placed her hand on his cheek, gently drawing his face up to look at her. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, turning his head and kissing her palm. "I'm just… When I met Russ today I couldn't help remembering all the things you said about him the first time you met him; you just went on and on about him and how great he was and how… attractive you thought he was." He shrugged his shoulders and smiled sheepishly at her. "I guess I just wanted to see whether I would measure up when I was his age. And judging by your reaction… I'm not even close. In fact, I think I've got about eight years max before you start putting a bag over my head when we have sex."

Lindsay shook her head and leaned in to kiss him softly. "Never gonna happen, babe. Like I said yesterday, we're going to grow old together," she assured him. "And that means that no matter how many wrinkles or grey hairs you get, yours is the only face I want to go to bed with every night and wake up to every morning." She pressed her forehead against his and sifted her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. "I love you, Danny."

"I love you too, sweetheart," he replied. He rubbed her arm affectionately and kissed her cheek. "You ready to get out of here?"

"So ready," Lindsay said. She got up and watched as Danny clicked the windows on his computer closed one by one until only the picture he had created of himself stared back at them. "You know…" Lindsay mused thoughtfully, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, "You're pretty hot for an old guy."

"Oh ha, ha. You're really funny," Danny groaned. "You've been talking to Jo."

"Maybe," Lindsay replied with a mischievous grin. "You heartbreaker. Should I be jealous?" Danny huffed at her and rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, Dan. I think it's cute that she has a little crush on you."

"Whatever," Danny muttered.

"I'm serious! And if she thinks you're hot now, wait till she gets a load of this guy in ten years time!" Lindsay pointed to the digital image and burst out laughing.

"Alright, you know what?" Danny said, shutting down his computer and getting to his feet. "I take it back. I'm not sorry for laughing at you yesterday and I really wish I'd let Adam print copies of that picture instead of standing up for you. What was I thinking?"

Wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, Lindsay leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. "You were thinking that you love me," Lindsay said. "And that if you had let Adam print copies like he wanted to… well, let's just say that the old guy in your picture would be getting lucky a lot sooner than you."

Danny shook his head as he grabbed his messenger bag from the floor beneath his desk. They continued their ribbing and jibing out into the hall, into the elevator and out the front door of the building 35 floors below. And through it all, Danny couldn't help but smile at the knowledge that this was the woman he was going to grow old with. Their looks would change but the connection between them and the love – the unconditional love that Jo had mentioned earlier – was there to stay.

_After all,_ Danny thought contentedly, _age is only a number._

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><p><strong>So… I don't know. Like I said, it's very different from what I initially set out to write. But then Laurzz beat me to the punch and I enjoyed her version so much that I knew I had to do something different. Like I said, I was off in the land of the heathens where they don't believe in the internet or electricity<strong>** for four days (I know! I didn't think that places like that still existed either!) which meant I only got a chance to watch the episode once before I started writing, so I hope I've captured the spirit of the characters here.**

**Please let me know as I'm feeling a wee bit insecure about this particular installment. Yay? Nay? I'd love to hear from you!**

****BTW... Can I just say that I loved seeing DJE again? Basically, all of Lindsay's thoughts on Russ Josephson are my own thoughts on DJE. The man is charm in human form. **  
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***rhymes***


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